Chapter 15. When Is It Okay to Break Rank?

Time magazine celebrated the courage and integrity of the whistle-blower by naming three important movers of 2002 the “Persons of the Year”: Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, Colleen Rowley of the FBI, and Sherron Watkins of Enron. Many have gone before these women and many will follow.

Fitzgerald, Wigand, Nader, and Silkwood are names of famous whistle-blowers that could not keep quiet in the face of what they believed to be great wrongdoing. The issues at hand were varied and important, including government waste in the form of a $7,000 coffee maker, cigarette manufacturers denying addictive qualities, a car that could harm millions, and health hazards in a nuclear power plant.